How The Story Ends
by mack6506
Summary: A collection of one-shots about Katniss and Peeta's post-Mockingjay life. Includes little toast-babies!
1. Come Back to Me

It is dark.

It is dark and it seems even darker than it is

because my eyes are not awake yet,

have been closed for so long that when I open them suddenly

they do not see anything.

She is kissing me.

She is kissing me on my cheeks,

on my nose,

on my forehead,

messily and hastily all over my face.

She is kissing me and her dark curls obscure my vision

and her hot tears taste salty in my mouth.

I am only confused for a moment,

but it has been far too long in this bed,

far too long waking up next to her,

to not understand her when she needs me.

And so I wrap my arms around her,

gently force her to stop kissing me long enough

to pull back her dark hair

and look into her dark eyes

and see her beneath all her darkness.

Once I've found her,

I can comfort her.

And once I've comforted her,

maybe she can get some sleep.

Maybe she'll be able to get up in the morning this time.

And if she doesn't,

I will do what I always do.

I will bring her hot coffee and warm bread.

I will tell Thom that there will be no bread from the bakery today.

And I will stay home.

I will hold her in our bed,

stroke her hair beneath my fingers,

whisper soft songs into her ears,

bathe her olive skin,

and try to get her to come back to me.

I will love her,

and do everything that loving her entails,

everything I promised her I would do

five years ago when we toasted that little loaf of bread

in our fireplace on that cloudy, rainy day.

I will love her because love is the only cure for her darkness.

Love is the only thing that can wash away what they've done to her.

Because what they've done is bad,

irrevocable, even,

but what I have for her,

what we have together,

is magic.

And I have to believe that it can cure our ills.


	2. Keeping Him Whole

I drop my bag on our front porch,

because Peeta hates the thought of dead animals sitting inside our house,

and I walk inside.

Even without him saying anything,

I know he's home.

I can feel him.

I've just begun to take out my braid (another request of Peeta's that seems silly to me, but which I give him anyway)

when I realize it is dauntingly quiet

and our house smells far too much like me

(dirt, wood, and fire)

than it does him

(bread, warmth, and cinnamon).

I know what that means.

I'd be stupid not to,

after living with him all these years.

And so I trudge slowly into our kitchen,

because I know it's where he'll be.

I do not run;

it will startle him.

I do not speak;

his mind is far too loud to hear anything I would say,

not to mention I still don't have words to help him.

Instead I go to him,

place my hand over his white-knuckled one,

the one clinging to my seat at our table,

kiss his arm underneath his t-shirt,

and hold him.

Gently, not too tight,

not to squeeze the life back into him,

because goodness knows no one can do that.

No, just gently,

my hands resting on his,

ever so slightly rubbing his shoulders in small circles,

every once and while kissing his skin,

just to let him know that I am there.

That I am not leaving,

nor dying,

nor trying to kill him.

That I am his, so completely,

that I will be his forever,

because I promised him.

It is the one thing I knew I could promise.

So much I've taken from him;

his sanity,

his family,

his prospect of children.

But this thing I can promise,

this thing I can keep.

I will always and forever be his in just the ways he needs me to be.

Sometimes that is lovingly and tenderly beneath the sheets of our bed.

Sometimes it is holding his hand on a walk that he insists we go on because the sky is simply too _blue_.

And sometimes it is this,

being there through the bad because he does the same for me.

I may not pull through very often,

but this vow I intend to keep,

and I know it is only me that can keep it and keep him whole.


	3. Pretty Little Thoughts

I'm scared.

I'm so, so scared

that every time he mentions it

I lay awake looking at the ceiling

for three nights afterward.

It is like butterflies in my stomach

but not

because it is so much worse,

how scared I am for a child that doesn't even exist yet.

I know people think that I refuse because I wouldn't love it.

No,

I know I would love it.

At least,

I know I'd try.

And if I tried there would be a chance that I would love it _too_ much.

And that really would kill me.

Because then the fear would be crippling.

Fear is like that,

always worse when it's mingled with love.

But.

One night,

after he's asked me again,

in his subtle way that shows me he's trying not to hope too much

and also trying not to scare me or anger me,

I lay awake staring at the ceiling.

And the butterflies are there again.

Then,

suddenly,

they aren't.

They're gone,

and with them the fear.

I let myself think about a child of mine

without letting my darkness wash out the joy I'm sure it would bring me.

I think about pitter-patter baby feet

and baking with Peeta

and singing with me

and Christmases where there will be enough for it to eat

and presents for it to play with.

I think about how pretty that baby would be,

how kind and gentle it would have to be,

with a father like Peeta.

I think about how it's stubbornness would be there too,

because it would be part me.

I think about Peeta as a father,

how wonderful he'd be.

I even think about me as a mother,

how I might not be the best but I would try very, very hard.

I took care of my baby sister, after all.

Thinking of her brings back the pain for an instant,

but it's not as sharp as it used to be.

I let myself believe that if I raised Prim,

(because I did almost raise her)

and she grew up to be the beautiful, optimistic, wonderful little person she was,

I could maybe raise one of my own.

One that I was supposed to raise,

not one that I had to start to raise because my father couldn't come home anymore

and my mother couldn't either, really.

Then the butterflies come back.

And I'm scared again.

But I can't undo those pretty little thoughts,

the ones of babies and a real family

beyond just Peeta and I.

I can't get rid of them,

not the next day,

or the next week,

or three months later when I finally decide to tell Peeta I stopped taking my shot.

He smiled so big the butterflies were gone for almost three days after that.

It won't be nearly as big as the one he'll give me tonight, though.

Because I went to the doctor today.

And they told me that tonight I'll be giving him the gift he's been longing for,

the gift that I still get frightened little butterflies about.

But they're accompanied by something else,

something that feels like joy,

and love,

and optimism.

And I think for the second time in my life that I can do this.


	4. Of Blue Eyes and Stubbornness

_She_ is here.

Wailing and screaming with beautiful,

beautiful little baby lungs

on my wife's chest.

My wife,

who is sweaty and probably very sore

and very, very exhausted.

She has never looked better.

I kiss her dark hair plastered to her forehead.

I kiss her lips, hard and fast,

because I love her for this gift that only she could give me,

even though there were some days before all this that she would beg me,

plead with me to go somewhere where I would be given a child.

But I couldn't do it.

And it's not because I thought she would eventually change her mind,

although she did.

It's not because I could never forgive myself if I left her alone,

although I couldn't.

It's because I knew that nothing anyone could give me

would feel as good as this feels,

right now,

watching them.

I knew it.

I smile at her and want so badly to tell her,

"I told you so."

But I don't.

Instead I cut our daughter's cord,

follow her to the bathroom (at Katniss' insistence) to watch her be cleaned,

watch my wife's eyes light up for the first time in literal _years_ as she holds her to her breast.

And she thought she couldn't be a mother.

I want to tell her that people who aren't meant to be mothers

wouldn't be crying at the sight of their baby daughters,

or holding them to their chests as though they had done it their entire lives.

But I'm interrupted by her lullaby.

People who aren't meant to be mothers don't do that either.

My eyes burn with tears and I have to wipe them away

because the sight and sound of her singing to our daughter

is overwhelming.

She hasn't sung since she shot Coin.

Not in front of people, anyway.

Sometimes I would come home and hear her singing old folk songs to herself as she hung up our laundry to dry,

but she'd stop and get red in the face as soon as she heard me behind her.

But here she is.

Sweaty, and tired, and sore, and _beautiful_

and singing to her,

on purpose,

to comfort her.

It's working too,

because our baby girl snuggles closer to Katniss' bare chest

and hushes her crying.

She looks as though she might fall asleep,

but then, all of a sudden,

as though she stubbornly had to witness the world this very instant,

she opens her eyes.

And I think I might cry again

because they are _mine_.

Katniss stops singing and just looks at her.

We are both filled with awe, I think.

That and pure adoration.

The doctor has left our room,

and it's too late for visitors.

So I close the door,

open the window just a little,

and huddle around my _family_

to get some rest.

Well,

maybe we'll just sit and look at her until the sky is orange

and Haymitch comes knocking.

And maybe when I find the courage to speak we'll name her,

a good strong name

(because she's bound to have Katniss' strong will).

But for now I simply huddle,

gazing between my wife and my daughter,

letting myself just sit in the moment and _feel_.

What I feel is love.


	5. Late Night Musings

I'm sitting with her in the dark.

We gave her a nightlight even though she's too little to feel fear.

I guess I didn't want her to be scared, even now.

She's just finished nursing and I can't seem to put her back,

no matter how heavy my eyelids get,

or how sore I know my arms will be from holding her up so long.

I just can't put her in her crib.

Peeta will be upset;

he wants to share the nighttime shifts.

But he can't feed her,

only I can.

And, selfish as it is,

I don't want to share that with anyone.

She needs something only I can give her,

and she gives me something back.

Her little baby self has already given me so much –

my sanity,

my peace,

my hope and optimism.

Yes, there are still days where I can't get out of bed,

or nights where I can't seem to find my way out of the maze that is my mind.

But when that happens,

Peeta brings her to me and we sit,

together,

me just listening to her heartbeat,

her little noises as she yawns or smacks her lips.

I have her now,

and I have Peeta,

and somehow the days don't seem so bad anymore.

That, and the good days seem better.

Who would have thought that something that I was so afraid to have

would bring me so much comfort?

So, on nights like tonight,

I sit in the rocking chair and look out at my forest

and listen to the crickets chirping through her open window,

listen to her hungry mouth being fed by my body,

and think how wonderful it is to be her mother,

her mama,

her mommy.

It is a title I would never have chosen for myself ten years ago,

and a title I would not trade for the world now that I have it.


	6. Unexpected Longing

She is two years old when it happens.

Something I never thought would happen to me.

I feel _longing_.

I look at her and she is so beautiful,

so full of life,

so full of everything I was afraid she would be filled with,

everything I am so apt to love just _too_ much.

She is equal parts Peeta and I,

with something all her own.

She is sweet and gentle and she loves to bake with her daddy,

looking back at me with his blue, blue eyes.

But she is stubborn,

and sometimes I'll look into those eyes and she'll crinkle her nose

and I know this is what Peeta sees

every time I'm about to get my way.

I have a feeling we'll both be the cause of more than a few of his gray hairs.

But, he's the one who sought a family with one of the most stubborn women on God's green earth,

so I don't feel so bad for him.

It seems all at once very long ago

and just like a blink away that she was a tiny, tiny creature

whose body I could fit in two hands.

And I miss that.

And so I am _longing_.

For the first time,

I am the one to ask Peeta.

And he plants one of his lopsided, loopy grins on his face

(the same one he gave me the night I told him she was on her way)

but he is not at all surprised.

I guess he knows me better than I know myself,

because I never saw this coming.

But my heart,

it feels the love she brings us,

feels it so much it seems as though it might burst

every time I see her dimples when she smiles really big,

or I hear her weak knock on our bedroom door every morning,

or I feel her chubby little arms close around my shoulders.

And I want more of it.


	7. Pancakes

I wake unnaturally late in the morning.

For a baker, anyway;

the sun is already up and painting my favorite color across the sky.

I groan, thinking of the bread that isn't made

and the lunches that aren't packed.

Katniss shifts beside me.

She also has slept in.

It is not until I put on my prosthetic and walk downstairs

that I realize the reason for our late wake-up call.

No pitter-patter of feet came running down our hall.

No little knocks sounded at our bedroom door.

No tired yawns of,

"Daddy, make me pancakes please,"

were whispered into my ears.

Our children have,

miraculously,

slept in.

I am just about to bask in this moment when Katniss comes around the corner,

rubbing the sleep from her eyes and pushing the hair from her face.

Then, suddenly,

she goes from drowsy to hyper-alert,

her eyes frantically moving toward me.

"Where are the kids?

Peeta, where are our kids?" she repeats over and over again,

driven to insanity by the abnormal silence,

running through the house so fast I can't catch up with her,

not on my leg the way it is.

I follow her to our son's room,

seeking to calm her down,

then feel some alarm myself when his bed is empty.

I turn, expecting to see a further frazzled Katniss behind me,

ready to bolt down the stairs and send a search party out for him,

but she is still.

Just as suddenly as her frenzy started,

she stops.

And she smiles.

I trod over to the door of our daughter's room and follow her eyes.

There, in her big girl bed that makes her look very, very small

is a dark brown braid

and a little blonde tuft of hair

poking out of pink, pink sheets.

I find myself mimicking Katniss,

smiling at our children sleeping soundly for the first time in

 _months_

together.

I kiss her still-flushed cheek and whisper small comforts and teases in her ear

until we both decide we are ready for the peace to break

and we topple into bed with our children.

He falls into her arms and plants a big, wet kiss on her cheek

and she climbs onto my back, urging me with yawning whispers,

just like normal,

to make her some pancakes.

I happily oblige.


	8. And Yet Here We Are

I find her on the couch in our living room.

She's curled up in a tiny, tiny ball,

and I take a second to just try to fathom how someone could make themselves that small.

It's late.

I had a family come into the bakery right as it was about to close,

begging for some left over bread.

They were so desolate,

so hungry and cold in this unrelenting rain we have been having

that I couldn't turn them away.

So I stayed,

made them fresh bread,

set them up in the room above the bakery with blankets

and the promise that I would return in the morning with clean clothes

and more food.

I called her,

of course.

I know how worried she gets.

Now I come home to a darkened house,

a small fire burning itself out in the fireplace,

our children surely asleep in their beds,

and my wife silently sleeping on our couch,

which makes my mind wander in so many different directions.

The fact that she's not in our room,

for one,

because I know it means she cannot sleep without me,

still,

even after all these years.

For another,

I have to stand in awe that she's even able to sleep at all.

After living through years without a single night of peaceful rest,

seeing her ability to sleep,

and not only that,

but to truly relax,

is quite literally a miracle,

and just more evidence to me of her strength

and her determination to not let the games beat her.

I am taken up in such a sudden surge of love that I cannot leave her be.

I go to her,

sit gently by her side on the couch,

resting my hand on her cheek and my lips on her forehead

until she awakens,

fluttering her dark eyelashes and reaching up to rub an eye.

She stretches her legs out from their curled up position

and reaches for me,

smiling.

"I missed you," she whispers as I lean down to kiss her again,

this time on the lips.

"I know. I wish you could have gone to bed."

"You know I can't."

She kisses me again and allows herself to be pulled into a sitting position next to me.

I take her hand and she grasps it tightly back,

something I do not take for granted after all those press appearances

where it simply hung limp in mine for show.

Now this is where she wants to be.

We lead each other to bed,

meandering past our daughter's room,

she who sleeps sprawled out, one leg beneath the sheet,

with Katniss' hair tangled around her pillow,

and past our son's room,

who is still so small as to be curled up like his mother,

blinking frail blonde eyelashes in his dreaming.

We let them be.

Again I reach for her hand and lead her to our bedroom at the end of the hall.

She is tired,

I can tell,

so I let her crawl to her side of the bed,

shifting under the sheets until she is comfortable,

and reaching for me.

I take off my leg and slip in beside her,

nestling her under my chin,

so close to my chest as to be an extension of my own body.

She looks up at me one last time before falling into oblivion

and kisses me.

I don't know if it is the family that I saw tonight,

their desperation and suffering,

but my emotions run high as she puts her lips to mine softly,

gently,

so domestically,

and settles her tangled head back onto my chest.

I cannot take this for granted,

this life we share.

I know the strong possibility that this never would have become reality,

I recognize that.

We have withstood more obstacles than any other two people I have ever come across,

and yet here we are,

in _our_ bed

in _our_ home

with _our_ children sleeping soundly in the rooms next door.

We are so entwined in this life,

so lost in each other that it is hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.

So as her breathing evens out and I marvel once more at her ability to sleep through the night like she could so long ago,

in a time where her father came home

and her hair was in two braids

and she did not understand the fear that existed in this world as of yet,

I see her and hear her next to me

and I am floored at her presence,

clutching her sleeping body as if it was tethered to my own lifeline,

which it most certainly is,

and fall quietly and slowly to sleep

next to this beautiful woman that I love

in a world that once more ensures

a father coming home to his children

a daughter in two braids

and so little fear in this world now as to be meaningless.

Thank God for her.

Thank God for this new world of ours,

one of cleanliness

and rebirth

and newness

and _life_.

So much life.


	9. Lessons in Breathing

I don't understand why it happens.

All I know is it does.

It still does,

and there's nothing I can do about it except try my very best not to succumb to the pain.

I try to walk myself through the day.

Sometimes it helps,

if the sun rose and everything was normal.

Which it was,

today.

I woke up to my son's nose next to mine,

his eyes so close mine couldn't quite focus on their gray.

I scooped him up and we went downstairs

where Peeta had cinnamon toast waiting.

I kissed his lips,

kissed our daughter's head.

She went to school.

I took my son to the woods and we picked berries for a while.

I came home and hung up laundry on the line while he played with acorns in the dirt,

which I was decidedly okay with,

because little boys need things like dirt.

I started making dinner with leftover venison.

Peeta came in with our daughter at his heels like she always is,

delivering fresh bread for dinner and showing me her latest artwork from school

(it's always very good,

probably because she _is_ Peeta's daughter).

We ate,

even laughed a little at the funny things coming out of our babies' mouths.

They are at such a perfect age.

I never want to change them.

I suppose it was these thoughts that sent me downhill.

Going through it like this,

I figure it must be.

Because here I am,

a little past dinnertime,

and I can hear Peeta giving our children their baths,

knowing I am hiding beneath the covers of our bed

watching the shadows on the wall grow lower and lower with the setting sun.

I started to think about change,

and how all I ever want to do is resist it,

and how it's coming for me even if I don't want it to.

That is exactly how I got here.

This doesn't help much,

though,

except to let me know that it was for a reason.

The worst ones are when I don't have one.

Sometimes I just fall;

nothing has to push me.

It is dark when the door opens to our room.

I'm facing the other way,

eyes shut,

drowning in numbness.

I expect a gentle caress against my hip,

a kiss on my cheek,

a weight falling heavy on the other side of the bed,

ready to pull me into his arms and try to whisk away the demons he knows he can do nothing about.

I always struggle trying to figure out whether or not I want him to do this.

I usually settle on yes because I know the outcome will mean fewer nightmares and a shorter span of depression,

but sometimes it is no.

And I don't know why.

So I am about to tell him to go away,

ready to resist his arms when they pull me in,

or turn my face against his kiss,

when a small finger touches my arm.

It is poking at me,

and a gentle whisper comes out.

"Mommy?"

I feel my heart sink.

I hate to have her see me like this,

and Peeta knows it so he usually tries to keep her out,

except for in circumstances where he knows her touch will soothe me.

He must be busy with the baby if he isn't in here, too.

I roll over under the covers and face my daughter,

my baby girl,

whose concern is so prevalent on her little face.

It kills me because I promised myself when she was born

that she would know no worry,

no pain.

Her little life would be childish and pretty and playful.

Instead I dragged her down with me,

to a place no child should ever have to see.

Not anymore,

anyway.

I almost tell her to go back to her daddy,

but her little eyes are so longing for love,

so deep blue with concern,

and yet so filled with life and wonder and beauty

that I have to let her in.

So I open up the comforter,

watch her crawl up onto the bed that is still too big for her

(but not for much longer),

and sweep her into my open arms,

cuddling her close to me.

She still smells vaguely of the sweet baby she once was.

Her hair is combed back and damp and curling,

and her warm breath is nuzzled into my neck,

and her little hands grasp at my arms which hold her so closely.

I breathe her in in all she is,

and with each breath my chest loosens

until it is almost easy again.

We sit there like that for what feels like a long while,

but which I know really is only a moment,

until she loosens herself from me to look into my face.

"Will you sing to me, Mommy?"

she asks in such a small voice.

I almost don't think that I can,

and so it is rusty and scratchy and dusty when my voice first comes out.

But then I start to sing,

softly,

softly,

to her,

a lullaby that my father used to sing to me,

a lullaby I sing to her every night without fail.

I cradle her against my chest,

just like we used to when she was a baby,

so, so small.

I rock her as best I can while still laying down,

and I sing to her.

It is a beautiful song full of love

and quiet night stars

and mountains

and folk.

It is her favorite.

And when I am finished,

I know that if I were okay,

if I were a better mother,

or person,

less depressed,

less dependent on my five-year-old child,

I would scoot her out of bed and down the hall into her own,

telling her goodnight

and sweet dreams.

But I am not that person.

And I cannot let her go.

I need her,

desperately,

and so it is for very selfish reasons,

reasons I wish did not exist but which,

right now,

I can't help,

that I keep her cradled against my body.

The room grows quiet

except for the crickets that chirp through the open window,

but she does not make a peep.

She does not complain.

Instead she curls into me further,

lets me run my hands over her soft dark hair,

whispering small insignificant things like,

"Shhhh, baby," and,

"Go to sleep," into her ear.

I watch her eyes droop and close,

watch the miracle that is her lungs

draw breath and release it,

her chest rising and falling.

I watch her thumb gradually make its way to her mouth in sleep,

and I find myself smiling for the first time tonight.

I lay,

smoothing my hands over her curly hair,

when Peeta cracks open the door,

his look of beloved concern dwindling to accept the small smile that graces his face.

I smile back at him.

He draws closer to the bed and whispers,

"I wondered where she wandered off to."

I nod and look down at her.

There are tears in my eyes when I look back into his blue ones.

"She helped me get better," I say quietly.

He gives me a soft smile and kisses my forehead.

"I know."


	10. Christmas at the Mellarks

I am awakened,

no earlier than usual,

with a gentle cry of,

"Mommy, it's Christmas!"

I open my eyes to a blue-lit bedroom,

the sun having not risen to christen the day with joy.

Though tired,

I grin at my mirror-image practically jumping up and down at the foot of our bed,

her baby brother still asleep in his room.

Peeta's morning sigh of content sounds out in the space just above my head,

and I look up to give him a morning kiss before we venture downstairs.

"Merry Christmas, Katniss," he smiles down at me.

"Merry Christmas," I say, rolling out from underneath his arm and

placing my feet onto the cold floor.

My daughter takes this as her cue to tug on my hand with the stubborn persistence that can only come from me.

I laugh instead of being irritated, because it's Christmas,

as she drags me down our staircase and into our living room,

where a simply decorated tree gleams in the early morning darkness,

brown paper packages clumped around its base.

Peeta is not far behind us,

holding the baby close to his chest.

He passes him to me with another kiss,

then moves to start a fire as I settle down to watch our daughter unwrap her gifts.

It's snowing outside,

a pretty white fluff that we never would have gotten twenty years ago.

Without the thickness of the coal dust, though,

it can settle purely on the ground undisturbed,

and glistens white instead of turning gray.

It is the perfect backdrop to the squeals of excitement coming from our girl,

the gentle gurgles of our baby boy as he wakes up in my arms,

the contented sips of hot chocolate (which we have loved since the trains).

It goes on like this for a while,

even after she has gone through all her presents.

She plays on in the light of the colorful tree and the ever-rising sun

until we tell her we have to get ready,

because our crowd of non-family family is coming soon.

Peeta is in the middle of baking all sorts of delicious treats and breads and cakes,

the kind that fill you full with a sweetness,

when the first batch of them start trampling in through the cold.

Gale stomps in with his hooligans of a family,

Johanna not bothering to tell her children to take their snowy boots off before running through our house,

in her typical Johanna fashion.

I decide to forget it since their first destination is me,

hugging me with cries of, "Merry Christmas, Auntie Katniss!"

and running off to Peeta in the kitchen.

Hazelle and Posy and Rory and Vick traipse in sometime after them,

with their respective spouses,

and Haymitch waltzes in,

only tipsy on some eggnog,

and adding to the noise in a festive sort of way.

Annie and her son are last,

coming in with Effie on their heels,

straight from the train station.

And so,

in no time at all,

our house is filled with the kind of muted noise that comes from big families at Christmastime.

Children are comparing gifts,

running to play hide and seek or some other silly nonsensical game.

Peeta bakes and Hazelle helps.

I would offer, except we all know that dinner would then be delayed for forever since Peeta would be stuck correcting my errors.

I really am no baker,

even after all these years with him.

Later I will bring the turkey Rory and I caught yesterday in from the freezer outside,

and Gale will probably help me cook it,

and the kitchen will become very busy with bakers and cooks and salad-tossers.

But for now,

we sit comfortably in any seat we can find;

around the table,

on the sofas in the living room,

even on the stairs.

We laugh and sip eggnog and nibble treats Peeta has finished,

cookies with trees and Santas iced onto them,

bite-sized cakes

and peppermint flavored candies.

I imagine we'll stay this way until dinner,

and again afterwards.

We do.

The kitchen is clean and Peeta is finally on the couch next to me,

joining in our casual conversations.

I just put our son down for a catnap,

and some of the kids are tittering from our daughter's room.

I'm leaning my head on his shoulder,

letting my eyes rest,

when she comes downstairs.

I suppose this is the start of it, then;

the gradual parade of worn out children seeking parents' laps that always inevitably takes place at gatherings such as these.

She is almost always the first,

and so I am not surprised when I see her shuffling toward her father and I.

I reach up over Peeta and,

without missing a beat in the conversation,

pull her onto my lap,

tickling her little sweater-covered arm gently as she sits,

content to stare out at all of the people she knows to love her,

not making a peep.

And I can't help but think of the moments leading up to her conception,

the still dark moments of the night where I felt almost nothing but fear,

save for a few peaceful thoughts.

One of those thoughts was of Christmas, I remember.

Thoughts of how she would be happy and content,

just as she is at this very moment.

I remember my Christmases as a child.

They were not like this.

In fact, they were anything but.

Was there a gathering of people in the small shack we called our home?

There was.

But it was not warm.

There was hardly a feast. Perhaps my father picked up some sort of rare root or something, but that was the extent of it.

Our bellies were not full as we fell asleep.

We could not look around the room and meet eyes with healthy, happy people who loved us with all that they had.

There were no gifts,

no Christmas songs,

no trees.

My memory is quite tainted as hers never will be.

Which is how I know we have succeeded.

My child is full and happy and succumbing to the exhaustion of a busy day with her cousins,

and she is listening to my heartbeat through my shirt and the deepened echo of my voice through my chest,

and she is sucking her thumb in the warmth of mine and her father's love,

and we have succeeded.

It is Christmas,

and she is happy.

And I have a child because of thoughts of this memory-making,

and I am happy.

So I settle into the curvature of my husband's neck,

tuning out the drabble of spoken words by our dearest friends,

and let my breathing fall in tune with that of my daughter,

who is falling asleep as I am,

contentedly in my lap.


	11. Be Still (The Little Healer)

**This is inspired by the song "Be Still" by The Fray, so if you want, listen to it while you're reading. I think it's a beautiful song and I like to think it's something Peeta might say to Katniss when she's haunted by her demons.**

 **Also, thank you so much for the wonderful responses I've been receiving! I'll keep updating as much as I can :)**

It happens one night.

I wake with Peeta's arms already encircling me,

screaming and shrieking and wreaking all kinds of havoc on my sheets,

which,

until I smell his scent,

until I feel his arms on mine,

I believe to be the ghosts of my dreams.

It doesn't happen often anymore,

but it does still happen,

even after all these years.

My breathing is heavy,

chest heaving with strain,

sobs threatening to overcome my lungs.

It takes me minutes which seem like hours to hear him.

"Shhh, Katniss,

be still now, love,

I'm with you.

I'm here.

Shhh," he whispers,

over and over,

so close to my ear his breath is like a butterfly's wings.

With each breath that comes easier I sink into his words,

into his arms.

But my screams are not just my own anymore,

and they are not just his to carry.

I cannot help that they echo all throughout the house,

all throughout the neighborhood, probably,

with our window open the way Peeta needs it.

Our neighbors are kind enough to ignore it,

or they are Haymitch,

who has heard so much worse I think it hardly affects him anymore.

Or he's really good at hiding it,

anyway.

But the neighbors are not who I'm worried about.

Rather I am concerned with the owners of two little feet that come trudging ever-so-hesitantly into my bedroom.

She is in her nightgown,

clutching at a rather worn blanket,

and sucking her thumb,

even though she gave up that habit a few years ago.

She is seven now,

and all too aware that her mommy is not like the other mommies in our town.

She's heard the rumors,

even if she is as young as she is.

Through the now open bedroom door,

I can hear our three year old wailing from his room,

undoubtedly also awakened by my screams and unable as of yet to understand that it's just Mommy having a nightmare again.

Peeta glances down at me,

reluctantly releasing me from his tight embrace,

gently settling me down on our pillows again.

I am a rag doll,

and do not move unless he moves me.

He pushes a stray hair away from my face,

then gets up and leaves at a pretty brisk pace,

obviously keen on tending to our son and getting back to me as soon as possible.

He sweeps his hand over our daughter's curls on his way out, though.

I see it from my paralyzed stance on our bed.

She finishes the long trudge over to my side.

My arms are curled out in front of me,

my hands clenched in fists in front of my face,

my legs curled up in the fetal position,

protective still from dangers that no longer exist but seemed so very _real_ only moments before.

She removes her little thumb from her little mouth,

angles her face so she is looking at me as a caretaker would,

and reaches out her hand to brush it through my dark hair.

She cradles my face in her hand as best she can and continues to soothe me the only way she knows how;

it is, of course, the way I soothe her when she is in need of comfort.

I look up at her,

feeling tears fall from the corner of my eyes,

and I see my sister.

Her healing ways are so evident in this little wonder I get to call mine.

The tears are for Prim.

And they are also of embarrassment.

I will never stop wishing I was less broken so my daughter didn't have to be the strong one.

It is not fair of me to ask this of her,

not fair of me to expose any of this to her.

But it was not fair to me what they exposed me to, either, I suppose.

I cannot help the way I am,

and so I sit and cry tears she mistakes for pain,

listening to the rustle of my hair against my ear as she strokes it back,

listening to her gentle hushes of,

"Mommy, it's okay.

You were only dreaming, Mommy.

Not real,

not real,

they're not real monsters, Mommy."

Again, she speaks the only way she knows how.

How perceptive my little one must be to pick up on these words so often spoken by me to her father when his knuckles grasp at a chair before dinner.

I wallow in self-pity and soar with pride for her healing touch and subtle intelligence,

all at the same time,

wondering how in the world those two feelings can combine in one person's heart.

But they do.

By this time,

Peeta is rushing back through our open door,

arms full of baby boy

whose face is so red and cheeks so tearstained it breaks me from my paralysis.

I am still trembling as I haul myself up into a sitting position,

taking him from Peeta and setting him in my lap.

Our daughter,

job done now,

wanders to his side of the bed and is lifted into the mess of sheets.

I wrap my arms around my little boy,

fill my nose with his shampoo-scented blonde curls,

and kiss his soft head,

reaching up with a hand to wipe away the tears that have subsided gradually.

Eventually we slide back down into the covers,

a collective unit,

none of us prepared to leave the pile of (finally) gently beating hearts.

So we fall asleep,

ready to start new and pretend the night is young,

pretend that we will wake up in the morning feeling well rested.

I curl around the baby boy who still is cradled in my arms,

resting his face near our daughter's,

who is cradled similarly against her father.

I know I will not be the last one to fall asleep,

for surely Peeta will stay awake until he can be sure I will doze off again,

but it doesn't take long this time.

I doze off with baby shampoo in my nose,

three sets of lungs filling all the spaces of silence in my ears,

the spaces that demons like to hide in but can't when they're filled with the human sound of persisting.

Peeta's words from earlier echo in my ears,

a soft-spoken lullaby that only he could give me.

"Be still,

I am with you.

I am here."

And he is.

They all are.


End file.
